Peoria Pride - October 23rd

On October 23rd at 7:00 am, HUNDREDS of willing Latter-Day-Saints from the Peoria Stake gathered in a neighborhood of Peoria to serve others. These people ranged in age from 14 on up. They each gave up their Saturday to help brighten some one's life. We ended up painting at least 8 houses, and doing the yards by weeding, moving massive piles of rocks, raking rocks, sweeping rocks, and building new fences. It truly was a labor of love. I am in awe of these amazing people.

Rod and Bethany are signing in.

Careful, Mandy - don't fall.

Becca and some of her friends are painting the trim. They were at a house down the street from us.

Steady hand, steady eye. That's Dallas for sure!

I hope this family knows how lucky they were to have a professional like John painting the outside of their home. He did a beautiful job!

I love Jennifer's brilliant smile - and her chocolate chip cookies weren't too bad, either!

Reid was our ward captain. He did a great job keeping us all on task.

Miriam and Taylor, two very cool girls. They were much cooler when they got their glow-in-the-dark fluorescent shirts. ha ha!

Elder Ware and Elder Juchau - I love the elders!It was an indescribable feeling to be part of this huge project. Even though we have done it before (it is an annual event) my heart was very touched by the camaraderie, the work, and the feeling of love that was almost tangible.

More Birthday Pics of Becca!

This is what we found in the morning on Becca's birthday. Some of the YW and their leaders decorated her car and our entry way.

She cleaned it all off before she drove off to seminary. It made them mad! They wanted her to drive around all day with a decorated car.

Becca wanted a cherry cheesecake for her birthday, instead of a traditional cake.

Surprise, surprise.

She word these birthday glasses in between classes. (hey, I made a rhyme!)

Think about your wish...

Hope your birthday was a happy day, Becca. ily! You deserve the best of every thing!

Happy Birthday, Becca!

I love this girl!!

I can't believe she is now 17 years old. Becca has really matured in the last year. Maybe it's the driving. I don't know... Here are 17 things I love to do with Becca:

1. Watch our favorite movies.
2. Laugh about her antics with her friends.
3. Attend church and then talk about what we felt or learned.
4. Make Green Chili Stuffed Chicken Quesadillas!!
5. Have a breakfast shake whenever we are in the mood!
6. Go to the midnight premiers of Harry Potter and the Twilight movies.
7. Krispy Kreme donuts.
8. Play games with Katie and Julie.
9. Look at her fantastic photos.
10. Listen to her play the piano.
11. Listen to her play the guitar.
12. Listen to her sing with her amazing friends.
13. Go for a walk at night.
14. Read the Hunger Game books.
15. Look at cute pictures of her nieces and nephews.
16. Give her hugs every day!
17. Drink our bed time Perro while reading.

Becca has added much joy to my life and I love being her mom. It is so great to have a daughter that is willing to do what is right. I want to thank her for a few things: Thanks for getting yourself up for seminary. Thanks for making good choices. Thanks for having good friends. Thanks for being trustworthy. Thanks for being kind. Thanks for your fantastic sense of humor. Thanks for being such a great auntie, sister, daughter and friend. I hope you have a fantastic birthday today, Becca!

The Storm

Many Arizonans did not know what this stuff was until Tuesday. And then we had piles of the little icy balls! --along with lightening, thunder, wind, and torrential rains. The kids at my school wanted to pick it up, eat it, make snowmen, and in general frolic in the stuff. This is one of the downed trees on campus. There are still leaves, branches, palm fronds and other debris in the roads and yards all over the Phoenix valley. When the water was rolling of the roof like a waterfall, I got a little concerned and thought "it's going to come inside!" Yep, I was right. This is the workroom floor. And our lobby got some major flooding, too. It smells like wet dog and was still very wet yesterday. On the way home, I hot hit with another huge down pour. I was worried, and pulled off into this Shell station on the corner of 35th and Dunlap. I tried to get under one of the islands for protection, but there were no spots. I pulled in as close as I could to the cars parked there for protection, and called Rod. While I was on the phone with him the hail came down so big, fast, and furious that I could not hear him over the pounding on the car. I was terrified that our car windows would break! I knew the car was getting all banged up and there was not one thing I could do about it! I just had to sit there and wait it out. Once the hail stopped I could go home. The streets were covered in hail. The hail stones were as big as quarters, and very rugged. I have never experience anything quite like it. And now my car looks like hell - I mean hail? I am very thankful that the now pock-marked car is the only damage we suffered. Many of our friends had broken windows in cars and homes, damaged roofs, and other losses. Our thoughts and prayers are with them!

Conference weekend...

I decided to do something productive on Saturday during conference, so while I listened to the conference via LDS.org, I made 1o sets of baby leg warmers. I so appreciate of the wonders of modern day technology. Our local channel no longer broadcasts conference,and since we don't have cable channels, we watched it on the internet. It was great! And I am most grateful for my sewing machine. I have had it for over 35 years, and it is still going strong! When I visited Katie over Labor Day, I saw the baby leg warmers on a display for her upcoming monthly Relief Society meeting. Her ward was making them for Primary Children's Hospital. The leg warmers can go on the baby's legs or arms when they are in the hospital with tubes and wires everywhere on their tiny bodies. It helps keep them warm when they cannot be dressed because of the wires and IVs. I was very impressed with the idea and with the project, so I decided to try it. I think we will be making them for Phoenix Children's Hospital in our ward during "Souper Saturday" in November. I found the knee socks at Target for $1.00 per pair. So all you Sahuaro Ranch Ward sisters, start buying up the knee socks on sale. We want to make a worthy contribution with this service project!

They were very quick and easy to make. Hopefully, I did them right!!

Conference was so uplifting. I loved every single talk. I can't wait to listen to all of them again. Rod always makes me a CD of the talks from the church website. My car will play Mp3 recordings, so I can listen to the talks when driving to and from work. It always makes my day better. I can listen to the messages several times, and I get something different each time I listen to the talks. I love our general authorities. They are all truly men of God. My spirit was deeply touch as they testified of the Savior and of the doctrines on which they expounded. It makes me truly want to be a better person, and a more devoted daughter of God!

Nick had a birthday!

Wow, Nick. I can't believe you are 19 years old!!

I know this post is very late. His birthday was August 14th. We went to the Texas Roadhouse for prime rib. It was a fun family dinner. It's really weird to have all grown up kids.

Another Gorgeous AZ Sunset

I really love a beautiful sunset, and there are so many here. This was one we happened to see when we were looking for an address in Goodyear. I totally reversed the numbers in the address, so the GPS wouldn't recognize it. But we finally found our destination. Even though we were late for the party, we did get to see this gorgeous sky.

Loveable faces...

I love all of these faces! They make my heart sing!

Labor Day Weekend!

Thursday night we did the packing. One thing I did not want to forget was this little dress I made for Savannah's American Girl Doll. This is what we gave her for her Baptism. I knew everyone would give her necklaces, bracelets, scriptures, money, etc. I wanted to give her something no one else would give and that she would love. She did love it! She ran right upstairs and put the dress on her doll.The boys even stopped for a quick photo. It was so fun when we arrived on Friday after an 11 hour drive. There were lots of shouts of "Grammy!" and lots of hugs. We passed out presents of books to everyone. We always try to take them some books. I miss these guys. Later on Julie and Ava came over, too. Saturday morning, Katie fixed Savannah up in her "Cinderella" hair-do. She looked so beautiful! Her dad was very proud of her. He was able to baptize and confirm Savannah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. How grateful I am for a wonderful son-in-law that is worthy to use the priesthood and care for his family.

Had to get a profile shot of the star of the day. She is so darling!

All ready to go to the church for the big event!

Princess Savannah spinning in her ball gown.

She received many beautiful gifts and cards. She is one loved little girl!

Savannah dresses her doll every day for the appropriate occasion.

Cooper and Luka were all dressed up too!

Katie fixed a wonderful meal for 70 people - Cafe Rio salads. She can throw a great party. Julie always helps, too! My dear old dad was the great granddad that was there for this special day.

I hope that Savannah will always remember this day, and all the people that tried to make it very special for her. We are so proud of her decision to be baptized. I know this decision will always bless her life. She is making wonderful choices and she will always be happy when she chooses the right!

CrrrrrAAASHHHHH!

Saturday evening, Rod and I were relaxing in the family room. I was on the computer and he had the TV on. All at once a storm warning interrupted the program. "Severe electrical storm warning through all of Maricopa County until 6:00 PM." I looked at the clock. It was 5:20 - "That's us!" I exclaimed. "WE are in Maricopa County." At that time, there was no wind, no lightening" I felt all safe and snug in my home. As I was cruising blogs, and peeking on on FaceBook, I heard a huge crashing noise. "CrrrrrAAASHHHHH!" What on earth...? (It was 6:00 straight up)Rod and I both jumped up. Seems that the electrical storm decided to target our yard. A strong wind had come up and it blew over a storage closet we had sitting in the middle of our back patio. It blew it over into the green house window in my kitchen and shattered it.

Rod moved quickly and threw the closet aside to assess the damage to the window. Looks like it bent the frame a little, too. Dang!

We were going to get rid of the closet, anyway. As part of our "refurbishing" we got rid of a bunch of "stuff" we didn't really need anymore, and the closet was one of the items.

Rod starts picking up the broken shards of glass and rescuing the objects that weren't broken.

I got out the utility knife and started cutting cardboard to cover the broken areas to keep the heat out.

This is now what I see when I glance out the kitchen window...

Lovely.